Until the brouhaha over the release of President Obama’s long form birth certificate on April 27, 2011, I had never considered the differences between a document that appeared on the computer screen as a PDF versus a JPEG. (Note, I write here that the President released a long form birth certificate omitting the qualifier that it is only an image of a mock-up of a political campaign advertisement since, as I have made clear for some time now, I have determined, that’s what it is. See, for example, DE-CODER RINGS (1 of 2) and DE-CODER RINGS (2 of 2) and WHY PRESIDENT OBAMA WAITED until APRIL 27, 2011 to RELEASE a FACSIMILE of his LONG FORM BIRTH CERTIFICATE) Indeed, I hadn’t bothered to read any of the myriad narratives dissecting that image, offered by ‘investigators’ whose (stated) intent was to buttress opinions it is both genuine and fake, insofar as it purports to establish Mr. Obama’s Hawaiian birth. Because I know the release of that image, both over the internet and, via hard copy (of that same internet image) to reporters are only part of a real political ad campaign.

But then, I accepted the invitation to appear on Reality Check Radio on March 13, 2012, to discuss what RC wrote is my work as a ‘Birther.’ Having done my homework by listening to past shows; I learned about John Woodman, computer-specialist-cum-author, who had previously appeared on RC to discuss both his analysis of the President’s long-form birth certificate as well as his conclusion, it was real. During his presentation of authenticity on September 1, 2011; Mr. Woodman was asked to explain why (he thought) the President’s long form birth certificate had been released in PDF versus JPEG. Mr. Woodman posited his opinion, which was not surprisingly aided and abetted by the host.

Here is that exchange, which begins at around the 56 minute mark.

RC: One question was asked in the chat room, I want to… I think needs to be addressed is, why did Obama put out such a squirrelly image? But I think you addressed that in the book. You found, you went through Google documents and found equally squirrelly PDFs, didn’t you, that demonstrate the same characteristics with the layering, so is it really a squirrelly image, I guess is my question?

JW: It’s squirrelly in the sense that, it raised a lot of questions, and so I think from that point of view perhaps not a lot of thought went into, at some level, ah, with whoever was responsible for, ah, the technical end of doing things or maybe there was, you know, maybe there was not really … at some level it seems to me there wasn’t necessarily a lot of thought as to, are there potential consequences of the exact kind of image that we present to the public here. Um, so, whoever … it seems to me that whoever put out the image there was perhaps a typical protocol for dealing with documents and it was regarded as a document. PDF is a format that’s used for documents. Um, and I think, you know, I think they may have thought, well, you know, this image, it’s a big deal, this image is going to be downloaded a bunch of times, ah, let’s optimize it, save some bandwidth, but I don’t think they realized or maybe thought through the implications of having an image out there that was not really in the format that people were typically expecting for a web image. Ah, when it comes to something that is just a simple image on the web, there’s what’s typically used is just a simple JPEG file and it’s the same that’s the same kind of image that you get with a digital camera and you take a photograph. And I can see that, um, the immediate thought would be well, you know, JPEG file, it may not be clear enough for people. Um, it turns out, in this case, that treating it as an image or as…treating it as a typical scanned more photographic image probably would have been a better choice than treating it as a document and making it a PDF and then optimizing the PDF to the degree that they did.

RC: Yeah, one theory that, you know, on this PDF versus JPEG discussion – and I don’t remember whether this was on the fogbow or on the Dr. Conspiracy site – is that PDFs render a lot better across multiple platforms. It’s..sometimes there are problems with JPEGS on web pages. And I don’t wanna also… I think you also can’t underestimate the importance of the file size because I believe the WH probably understood that this document was going to be downloaded tens of millions of times, um, so compressing it to a file size of 300+k versus 2 or 3 megs for a JPEG of the same, you know, of an uncompressed file was a… would have been a big deal as far as bandwidth. Now I don’t know whether anyone consciously thought about them, but there might have been some protocol that says, ‘hey, for, you know, these things we put on our web, for documents that go on our web site, they shall be PDFs, done this way. It could have been that someone was just following a standard protocol for the WH web site or it could have just been someone said, ‘hey, let’s, ah, these are the options I chose when I did it.’ I don’t know whether we’ll ever know or not.

JW: In the government you have rules and procedures for doing things a particular way. Somebody may have simply been following the procedures that somebody had set up. I think they probably could have come up with a JPEG file that would have been just as clear that would have been about the same size as the PDF file, ah, and I think in this case it would have been… for all the hoopla that it caused I think it would have been a better choice for them.

For reasons spelled out below; I dismissed outright any explanations suggesting an official reason for the PDF versus the JPEG on WhiteHouse.gov. Nevertheless, the discussion was useful in that it signaled to me; for some reason not explored by either man, releasing the long form BC in PDF but not JPEG was a distinction with a seminal difference. And, if asked on the show, I wanted to be prepared to comment on this aspect of the release. So, I asked a graphic artist to explain, in simple lay terms, the difference between a document reproduced in PDF versus JPEG. What I took away from her explanation is this: a JPEG of a document is one-dimensional picture, whereas a PDF is easily de-constructed into its component parts. Instantly, I told her why the Obama campaign had released the long form image of his Hawaiian birth certificate as a PDF and not a JPEG.

Before I reveal my answer, I want to show you this comment from elana, a regular poster on Democratic Underground. (At that time, she was credited with 626 posts.) (My emphasis appears in orange.)

elana i am

i just opened the pdf file from the white house site in illustrator myself, and it turns out he’s right. what he is seeing isn’t just clipping paths though, but also bounding boxes (both demonstrated by the blue lines in his example you’ve linked) from placed images that have had clipping masks applied to them.it means that the green patterned background is a seperate image placed into the illustrator file. and not only that’s but it looks like the original copy of the certificate may have been on that paper and they whited it out. it also means that each of those little sections surrounded by a blue bounding box in your top example is also a separate transparent bitmap image (presumably of what was whited out on the green paper) placed in the illustrator file (except that empty bounding box on the lower left). i’m literally sitting here moving all the pieces of this pdf file around. unfortunately your friend is not lying and he does know what he’s talking about.i know this is real, because it came directly from the white house website, but this was a PISS POOR way of presenting this document to the public. and i mean PISS POOR because they couldn’t hardly have done it in a way that made it look more doctored. i could post an image of all the pieces moved around, but i’d rather not unless you need to see it to believe it.obama has got some *real geniuses* working for him…

Yes, elena, to use your words, Obama does have some “real geniuses” working exclusively for him. And, unlike you, I am not being sarcastic. Because while you see the release of this obviously doctorable document as evidence of ineptitude, I see it for what it is: a guarantor of sorts against criminal sanctions. I mean, God forbid some well-meaning SoS in some state beleaguered by hordes of citizen challenges to the ballot decided to download the ‘document’ and officially pronounce, ‘See, I told you, he is qualified for the job and, therefore, may appear on our ballot,’ entering the downloaded JPEG image into the official records of that office. (Or worse, what if a court of law hearing any one of the several infirm ballot challenges downloaded the JPEG document, sua sponte, so as to dispense with the case.) Under the U.S. Code, passing off a false identification document in this way is a serious crime. Id. But by fashioning a document in PDF, thus making it so easily manipulated that even people with minimal computer savvy can play with the image; its creators can sustain a defense to the crime of document fraud by pointing out that, it is such an obvious fake; no one in his right might could think this wasn’t just the focal point of a paid political ad. And, it is precisely the intent to avoid having the image we created misconstrued as ‘real’ which resulted in our choosing to release it as a PDF and not a JPEG!’

Now, here’s how I knew the explanations posited by RC and Woodman as to why the ‘WH’ released the long form birth certificate were absurd.

Additionally, the WhiteHouse.gov web site, which is actually a blog; is not an official government portal, either. (Contrast, for example, USA.gov, which can be accessed from a tiny link in the footer of the WhiteHouse.gov blog.) Here is a section of an email I received after consultation with that same graphic artist referenced above.

As for the ‘whitehouse.gov‘ website… Let’s go down this rabbit hole together, shall we?

According to “alexa” (a popular website information source), it says the following about the domain:

Whitehouse.gov is ranked #3,379 in the world according to the three-month Alexa traffic rankings. We estimate that 67% of its visitors are in the US, where it has attained a traffic rank of 1,119. Roughly 58% of visits to it are bounces (one pageview only). Compared with the overall internet population, this site appeals more to Caucasians; its visitors also tend to consist of childless men aged under 25 and over 45 who browse from school and work and have incomes over $30,000. Whitehouse.gov has been online for at least eleven years.

According to a “reverse whois” search, I found that activity on this domain is consistent with what ‘alexa’ claims, showing activity that dates back 11 years. What’s interesting, however, is that only two entries are dated in 2003. The rest are dated from April 8th 2011, and beyond. This means that the domain was set up, but NOT USED in it’s “official” capacity until April 8, 2011. The domain was simply “acquired” in 2003.

On this above link, as you scroll down, you’ll notice a name, “Martin Hannigan”, with Akamai. It even lists a phone number: 617-444-2535

According to their “about” page, Akamai handles tens of billions of daily Web interactions for companies like Audi, NBC, and Fujitsu, and organizations like the U.S. Department of Defense and NASDAQ — powering brand new business models that serve the changing online economy.

This is all I have been able to dig up so far, but it’s enough to give you something to chew on, for sure!

…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

UPDATE: I wrote this article back in March 2012 but just recently received this reply from John Woodman, a self-described “computer guy” who authored a book purporting to establish, Barack Obama’s birth certificate is not a fraud. (Of course, as I have pointed out both in this article and in numerous other articles; by itself, neither the electronic image nor the hard copy mock-up of Obama’s birth documents is accurately described as a fraud. Rather, both constitute bona fide authentic political campaign advertisements, legally governed by specific requirements contained in the U.S. Code.) Mr. Woodman is featured in the present article as a prime example of ‘anti-Birthers’ whose narrative appears to me to be ideologically driven, in the absence of factual support for their claims. Mr. Woodman’s comment is worth reading because as you will see; on becoming aware of my historical criticism of his work, he attempted to rehabilitate that work only by offering new spin on the challenged pronouncements, and not by offering any new facts which would tend to prove me wrong.

OMG! My complaint in MS was forwarded to the Supreme Court. Chief Justice appointed a Special Judge to handle my complaint. See order below. Thank God the things started to move, I don’t know, if I can withstand the stress for much longer.

So began the quote from the email sent by Orly to bob strauss, who posted her ‘news’ on CW’s blog, along with a link to her site. Until that point, I had no idea she had filed a ballot challenge in MS, let alone that it had wound its way to the Supreme Court, especially given the fact, as I already knew, MS had no candidate ballot eligibility law for the party’s Presidential preference primary. So, as I had done when bob posted her previous headlines with respect to GA – “I WON!!! I WON!!!” – I clicked on the link.

Here is the entire title of this post announcing the judge’s interlocutory or interim court order in the MS complaint, just as it appeared on her blog.

Below is the order. (Note: I embedded this document posted on Scribd by “BirtherReport.com/ObamaReleaseYourRecords.com” because as much as possible, I like to identify and (dis)credit all the co-conspirators promoting this garbage, hoping at some point citizens hold all of them liable for perpetrating this fraudulent industry which purports to be aiming at exposing, President Barack Obama is Constitutionally ineligible for the job.)

What caught my eye immediately was that this time, Orly was the named Complainant! And, it appeared she had misidentified the name of the Mississippi Democratic Party, calling it the “Democrat Party of Mississippi.” Of course, I looked that up; yes, it is the Mississippi Democratic Party. Next, having never examined her underlying case; I now looked for the reason the MS state supreme court had issued this order. I looked up the name of the judge who had signed the order – yes, he sat on the MS supreme court bench – and then, I looked up the law he had referenced as the basis for that order, Mississippi Annotated Code 23-15-961. .

(1) Any person desiring to contest the qualifications of another person as a candidate for nomination in a political party primary election shall file a petition specifically setting forth the grounds of the challenge within ten (10) days after the qualifying deadline for the office in question. Such petition shall be filed with the executive committee with whom the candidate in question qualified.

(2) Within ten (10) days of receipt of the petition described above, the appropriate executive committee shall meet and rule upon the petition. At least two (2) days before the hearing to consider the petition, the appropriate executive committee shall give notice to both the petitioner and the contested candidate of the time and place of the hearing on the petition. Each party shall be given an opportunity to be heard at such meeting and present evidence in support of his position.

(3) If the appropriate executive committee fails to rule upon the petition within the time required above, such inaction shall be interpreted as a denial of the request for relief contained in the petition.

(4) Any party aggrieved by the action or inaction of the appropriate executive committee may file a petition for judicial review to the circuit court of the county in which the executive committee whose decision is being reviewed sits. Such petition must be filed no later than fifteen (15) days after the date the petition was originally filed with the appropriate executive committee. Such person filing for judicial review shall give a cost bond in the sum of Three Hundred Dollars ($ 300.00) with two (2) or more sufficient sureties conditioned to pay all costs in case his petition be dismissed, and an additional bond may be required, by the court, if necessary, at any subsequent stage of the proceedings.

(5) Upon the filing of the petition and bond, the circuit clerk shall immediately, by registered letter or by telegraph or by telephone, or personally, notify the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, or in his absence, or disability, some other judge of the Supreme Court, who shall forthwith designate and notify from the list provided in Section 23-15-951 a circuit judge or chancellor of a district other than that which embraces the district, subdistrict, county or any of the counties, involved in the contest or complaint, to proceed to the county in which the contest or complaint has been filed to hear and determine the contest or complaint. It shall be the official duty of the circuit judge or chancellor to proceed to the discharge of the designated duty at the earliest possible date to be fixed by the judge or chancellor and of which the contestant and contestee shall have reasonable notice. The contestant and contestee are to be served in a reasonable manner as the judge or chancellor may direct, in response to which notice the contestee shall promptly file his answer, and also his cross-complaint if he has a cross-complaint. The hearing before the circuit court shall be de novo. The matter shall be tried to the circuit judge, without a jury. After hearing the evidence, the circuit judge shall determine whether the candidate whose qualifications have been challenged is legally qualified to have his name placed upon the ballot in question. The circuit judge may, upon disqualification of any such candidate, order that such candidate shall bear the court costs of the proceedings.

(6) Within three (3) days after judgment is rendered by the circuit court, the contestant or contestee, or both, may file an appeal in the Supreme Court upon giving a cost bond in the sum of Three Hundred Dollars ($ 300.00), together with a bill of exceptions which shall state the point or points of law at issue with a sufficient synopsis of the facts to fully disclose the bearing and relevancy of such points of law. The bill of exceptions shall be signed by the trial judge, or in case of his absence, refusal or disability, by two (2) disinterested attorneys, as is provided by law in other cases of bills of exception. The filing of such appeals shall automatically suspend the decision of the circuit court and the appropriate executive committee is entitled to proceed based upon their decision unless and until the Supreme Court, in its discretion, stays further proceedings in the matter. The appeal shall be immediately docketed in the Supreme Court and referred to the court en banc upon briefs without oral argument unless the court shall call for oral argument, and shall be decided at the earliest possible date, as a preference case over all others. The Supreme Court shall have the authority to grant such relief as is appropriate under the circumstances.

(7) The procedure set forth above shall be the sole and only manner in which the qualifications of a candidate seeking public office as a party nominee may be challenged prior to the time of his nomination or election. After a party nominee has been elected to public office, the election may be challenged as otherwise provided by law. After a party nominee assumes an elective office, his qualifications to hold that office may be contested as otherwise provided by law.

Okay, this says, “any person desiring to contest the qualifications of another person as a candidate for nomination in a political party primary election shall file a petition contesting eligibility…” This means, Orly is a “person” notwithstanding she doesn’t live or vote in MS. And it says, ‘If the state party executive board has thus far ignored your request for relief; then, file a petition with the MS Circuit Court, which will petition the Supreme Court to appoint a special judge in the circuit court, to hear your plea.’ Sure enough, I looked up R. Kenneth Coleman, the judge named to hear the case. Who is Mr. Coleman? A retired Circuit Court judge.

There you have it. Perhaps in making her hyperbolic announcement; Orly did not intend to mislead her captive readers, again, into believing she had brilliantly figured out how to pierce the judicial conspiracy which usually sabotaged her sound legal practice. Rather, she might just have been thinking, ‘OMG! I followed the law and, by following the law, I achieved the exact result spelled out in law!’

Only, of course, unbeknownst to the MS supreme court; she was still using the wrong law.

That same paragraph allowing Orly to name herself a petitioner; also clearly states, this law only applies to a contest of a candidate who is nominated via a primary election. For example, the candidates for, say, U.S. Senator from the R party who want their names to appear on the general election ballot; are nominated for that role in the party’s primary contest. Party nominees for President are not chosen in primary elections but at Presidential nominating conventions. No; only delegates to that convention are chosen in the primary.

(The rest of Orly’s underlying complaint repeats the same tripe knocked out of legal forum after legal forum, both judicial and administrative, which recognizes it as such.)

If you are one of those people who ‘come hell or high water’ still ‘credit the ‘legal’ work of Orly Taitz, which work appears to be loosely focused on the issue of President Barack Obama’s Constitutional eligibility for office; then, I have to say, you are not one of those citizens to whom my work is addressed. Because at this point, if you still don’t understand what she is doing wrong then, you will never understand what I am doing right. Rest assured, while you are praying for the success of your personal savor in this endeavor, literally; and thereby are avoiding your civic responsibility to learn how our political system works and, to fix it, where it does not; I plow on with the heavy lifting, on your behalf.

I will make this brief, because ever since ALJ Malahi issued the ruling adverse to Complainants at the administrative hearing on the ballot challenge in GA; I have been swamped by disillusioned ‘Minor v. Happersett‘ ex pats now ‘willing’ for the first time to try to shift the burden of proof (and production) as to whether President Obama is a NBC, onto those people who swore he was, the seminal point in the eligibility ‘cures’ I first proposed more than 3 years ago now, before the name Barack Obama was printed on state general election ballots.

(Note to those ‘birthers’ rendered depressed by Malihi’s findings (after raised artificially high by Orly’s ‘false flag,’ ‘I won!!! I won!!!’): just because an ALJ in GA says, MvH’s mention of the phrase NBC doesn’t mean what Leo Donofrio says it means; doesn’t mean, it doesn’t mean what he says it means. Or that Leo generally doesn’t know what he is talking about. Of course, as I wrote in jbjd’s FRENEMIES LIST, MvH’s use of the phrase NBC doesn’t mean what Leo says it means; and Leo doesn’t know what he is talking about. (I wrote this article before ALJ Malihi decimated Complainant’s reliance on MvH; although I believe he overstepped his lawful authority by ‘ruling’ on the meaning of NBC as that term appears in the U.S. Constitution; and by citing as precedent for a decision in a GA (11th circuit) administrative hearing, a decision by an IN (7th circuit) state appellate court, worse, in a state not even in the same (federal) circuit.) http://www.uscourts.gov/court_locator.aspx

At the risk of exposing myself as the only birther in the room able to view the recent events in GA from the ‘glass half full perspective'; I want to point out, in fact, a lot of good news came out of this fiasco. For example, counting down in no particular order of import:

5. Citizens of GA made a modest effort to take control of their state ballots using their state laws. High 5! (Now, if they would only have the self-confidence to do so on their own, that is, without inviting in all of these outside agitators! And speaking of outside agitators, it seems completely incongruous to me that the same people who eschew creeping federalism would invite into a ‘local’ state election law scrimmage; coaches and fans from across the country with the hope that by doing so, they somehow tilt in their favor the decision of the local referee!)

4. By participating at any stage in these ballot challenge proceedings, from formulating the legal cause of action setting off the event as well as the legal theory underpinning the charges; to drafting the documents; to representing the parties, to promoting and providing coverage of the spectacle, which culminated in a live broadcast of the evidentiary hearing; those involved afforded people across the country the opportunity to see for themselves that the money they had been donating to such ’causes’ was being frittered away by a cast of characters with no business near a hearing room, let alone a courtroom. (Maybe now they will stop funding this litigious juggernaut. NOTE TO THOSE WHO STILL FAIL TO ACCEPT, THESE PEOPLE HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THEY ARE DOING: art2superpac, the same-old-limited-thinkers-in-the-birther-game-disguised-as-the-new-kids-on-the-block; are now soliciting funds to mount a legal challenge to ALJ Malihi’s ruling. Without attacking the credibility of this ‘configuration’ of the familiar cast of birther characters; let me just assure you, a challenge of this decision has even less chance of success than the original action.)

And now – I told you, I am in a hurry – the best news from GA has nothing to do with anything said or done by either Complainants or ALJ Malihi. Can you guess what that is? (HINT: what did I say was the best news coming out of the equally legally infirm Hollister case, from January 2009?)

1. Attorney Jablonski, by submitting a Motion to Dismiss in which he argued the inviolate right of the political parties to choose their candidates for the state election ballot; as opposed to the party’s right to have the name of its chosen candidate printed on that same ballot; confirmed that the way to keep Constitutionally ineligible candidates out of the WH was to keep their names off the state ballot.

Because political parties don’t have a right to put the names of ineligible candidates on the ballot in states that limit ballot inclusion to only those candidates qualified for the job.

Some of you have reported, state officials respond to your complaints by insisting they have no right to tell the parties which candidates they may choose. You have indicated, they appear to be trying to fob you off. I have encouraged you not to argue but, instead, to respond as if they are sincerely misreading your intent. Concede the obvious. ‘Of course, state officials have no right to tell the parties which candidates they may run for office! It would be silly to think otherwise. That’s why I am not complaining they picked an ineligible candidate – they can pick anyone they want; I couldn’t care less – and I am not asking you to countermand their choice. But I do care about my state laws; and in this state, we don’t print the names of ineligible candidates on the ballot. So, I just want to make sure my state officials aren’t printing the names of those ineligible candidates on my ballot.’

If your state already has a candidate ballot eligibility law; petition the SoS to promulgate emergency rules to carry out the intention of the legislation. There is no legitimate reason these cannot be in place by the time these same state officials receive the DNC Service Corporation’s Certification of Barack Obama’s 2012 nomination.

Finally, let me remind you, by writing smart candidate eligibility laws, you will not only guarantee that only the names of eligible candidates will appear on the ballot; but you will also lead the way to reach the federal appellate court with a case on point so as to obtain a legally binding definition of NBC. That is, the parties will, undoubtedly, protest these laws. (‘It’s unConstitutional for you to define NBC!’) And, of course, the state’s reply? ‘We are not defining NBC, as that term is used in Article 2, section 1 of the U.S. Constitution! That would be illegal! We are only defining, the names of which candidates we will print on our state ballots.’

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jbjd on REVOLUTION RADIO with "drkate" DISCLAIMER: These radio interviews took place in 2010. And while the information contained therein is as timely now as then; they took place before drkate's on-line persona morphed into its present iteration.)

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When is my work protected? Your work is under copyright protection the moment it is created and fixed in a tangible form that it is perceptible either directly or with the aid of a machine or device.
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